Lesson 18: Organization Theme Introduction

People! Managing people is one of the most difficult aspects of project management. Some of the things you need to do is explained in PRINCE2®'s Organization theme, but remember that you need to invest on your soft skills as well, which is not the subject of PRINCE2. So, can you explain the roles and responsibilities in PRINCE2?

Based on AXELOS PRINCE2^® material. Reproduced under licence from AXELOS. All rights reserved.
Note: PRINCE2 2017 edition is now called PRINCE2 6th edition.

00:07 – The Organization Theme
00:10 – This theme actually covers two main topics
00:13 – First, the organizational structure which includes the roles and responsibilities which we expect
00:20 – And then, communication; so how communication is done during the project
00:26 – So a tip to remember this communication part
00:29 – You have to communicate to people during the project
00:32 – So which theme would you look for a list of people involved in the project?
00:37 – Well, you would look in the Organization Theme
00:41 – This theme covers the typical roles in a PRINCE2 project
00:45 – So for example, the roles in the Project Board which are the senior user, the executive and the senior supplier and so on
00:54 – The Organization Theme also covers the management levels
00:58 – So at the top we have the CPC, which is the Corporate, Programme or Customer
01:03 – And then we have the Project Board and other layers as well, which we will go over in a moment
01:10 – The representatives cover the roles that represent the business user and supplier
01:16 – Part of any project is to figure out how to communicate to the different project stakeholders
01:22 – There are many public examples of projects that had big issues with the wrong and bad communication
01:29 – So just imagine if your CEO or your leader was allowed to rant on Twitter at 3 o’clock in the morning, how much of a problem that would cause!
01:38 – It is therefore important to know your stakeholders, group them and figure out how they view the project and then how to engage with them
01:49 – So what type of questions does the organizational structure help us to answer?
01:55 – Well, first of all, it helps to answer who’s who in the project
01:59 – So who is assigned the different roles, and this needs to be known
02:05 – Also, people need to know and understand their own roles, so they need to know, “What is expected from me?”
02:13 – The Project Manager should take time to make sure that people know their own roles
02:19 – Next, they need to be aware of the other roles and what to expect from them during the project
02:25 – The Project Manager should also check regularly that people are carrying out their roles as agreed
02:33 – The whole idea here is to make sure that people get serious about their roles and are held accountable
02:41 – PRINCE2 has done a good job of creating good roles and responsibility descriptions for each major role in a PRINCE2 project
02:50 – And these should be used, at least as a basis
02:54 – There are three different project interests in a project
02:58 – The first of these I will discuss is the Business Interest and the executive role looks after the business interest
03:06 – Therefore, the executive should always be asking the question, “Is this project value for money?”
03:14 – The next of these project interests is User Interest
03:18 – So the outputs of the project will impact the users, so they must be represented in the project as they will benefit from the delivered products and they will also operate, maintain or support the project’s outputs
03:33 – So, users then should help to describe the requirements in product descriptions
03:39 – And they should be interested to see that the correct products are produced and to the agreed quality level, so they can use them as expected
03:47 – The senior user role then will represent the user’s interests on the Project Board
03:54 – And lastly, the Supplier Interest
03:57 – So the supplier provides the resources and the skills to create the products and they can either be internal or external in the company
04:06 – So for example, you can have an internal IT department or use an external IT company to create an IT application
04:16 – The supplier interests are represented on the Project Board by the senior supplier role
04:22 – So the supplier, how they think? Well, they wish to make sure that they can deliver what’s promised and as requested and to get paid
04:33 – So, we also use the term Three Main Project Interests
04:38 – So, what happens if one of these three interests is not represented in a project?
04:44 – Let’s take for example, users; if they are not properly represented
04:48 – The business and supplier interest can still create a brilliant product, but this product will probably never be used
04:56 – And this kind of things happens a lot where the supplier is allowed to assume user requirements
05:02 – So users must be represented and not just at the start of the project, but all the way during the project to make sure that they’re going to get a product that they can use
05:13 – PRINCE2 assumes there will be a customer who requests the product and who will pay for the product and perhaps use the product
05:21 – And PRINCE2 also assumes then that a supplier will produce the product, so we have our customer and supplier
05:29 – Both the customer and the supplier can exist within the same company; so, for example, two different departments
05:36 – Or the supplier could also be external
05:40 – So now let’s look at this from a completely other way
05:43 – So let’s say that you work for a software development company and your customer is external
05:49 – So your customer is a bank and your company is providing the bank with a new application
05:55 – So the bank is the external customer
05:58 – Your company then will have its own business reasons for doing the project
06:02 – For example, it can wish to have a 30% margin and win future projects
06:09 – And then the bank can also have its own business reasons
06:13 – So your company will have its own Business Case and the bank will also have its own Business Case
06:20 – So I just want to show you that there are different ways to look at a project
06:26 – So now let’s look at the different levels in the project organization
06:31 – As you can see, there are four levels in a project structure
06:35 – Level one is the Corporate, Programme or Customer
06:39 – So this level is responsible for commissioning the project and identifying the executive
06:45 – They decide at the start of the project how the Project Board will keep them updated and they will also define the project tolerances that the Project Board will work within
06:58 – The next level, what we call the Direction level
07:01 – So here, the Project Board will sit, and the Project Board are responsible for directing the project and will be accountable for the success of the project
07:12 – And they do the following: they approve all resources and major plans; for example, the Project Plan and Stage Plan
07:20 – They authorize any deviation if tolerances are exceeded
07:25 – And they approve the completion of each stage and authorize each new stage
07:32 – The process Directing a Project describes the work of the Project Board
07:38 – Then the next level we have is what we call the Management level and here is where the Project Manager sits
07:45 – The Project Manager is responsible for the day-to-day management of the project
07:50 – And their primary responsibility is to ensure that the project produces the required products in accordance with the objectives
07:59 – Which are, time, cost, quality, scope, benefits, and risk. Remember these are the six project variables
08:09 – And then the lowest level is what we call the Delivery level
08:13 – So the team managers here are responsible for delivering the project’s products at a certain quality and within a specific time scale and cost
08:24 – A team manager can have the authority and responsibility of creating team plans and managing a team to create and deliver the required products
08:34 – And the process Managing Product Delivery is where the teams produce such specialist products
08:41 – PRINCE2 calls these four levels the Project Organization
08:46 – So think of a company organization that contains all levels
08:51 – And PRINCE2 refers to these three levels as the Project Management Team
08:56 – So this is a temporary team, it is only a team during the project and the top level, which we have the Corporate or Customer or Programme or Customer, is outside the project
09:07 – So a common exam question we get is which level sits outside the Project Management Team?
09:14 – And the answer of course now is the Corporate, Programme or Customer

So, now you know that communications are covered in this theme. How do you think we should set the strategies for communications?

Lesson 18: Organization Theme Introduction

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